Knowledge Management - A survival Tool

Introduction:

Customer Relationship management(CRM) , Knowledge Management(KM) , Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP) ; all these recently evolved ,hot management jargons are changing the ways of doing business. With the help of Internet and emails, information flow has become quick and PCs are enabling this information into knowledge. Every business is reinventing its style of doing business in a new knowledge based environment. E commerce is the new and powerful medium of doing business. Main beneficiaries of E commerce are small and medium sized enterprises. They can now compete with giants in the world.

Customer are now click of a mouse ways from small and large businesses. Days of real and perfect competition are here.

In this exciting environment , Customer is the king. It is said that without customer you have no business. So ultimate objective of any management style or technology is to satisfy customers. Satisfied customers are cost free sales person for any enterprise( true to our practice too). Personalizing services is the key to success in today's competitive business. So the better u know your customer , the better U can offer them what they want. Unfortunately , this is not the practice in many companies in India. Clients want to see a much greater involvement and commitment from their service providers in finding solutions to their business needs.

We are discussing How Knowledge Management can be useful in Customer Management.

What is Knowledge: During the course of our business or any activity we gather many data. This is simple and unqualified. For instance , a company's accounting department record a piece of data noting that customer A 's outstanding is Rs.500000/- .

Now , information tends to enrich raw data by giving it some context. So information that Customer A's buying has gone up since last 3 months and hence outstanding has increased.

Knowledge is what information becomes when it is connected to relevant know how or know why and thus supports or informs key decisions. So when company's policy states that when outstanding increase above Rs.400000/- account must be scrutinized closely and customer be informed about the same for explanation.

Now we have the knowledge , it must be acted upon. So customer A should be informed about the increasing outstanding and account to be more closely watched. On doing so company may come to know that Customer A has received huge Govt. order so their requirement has gone up or otherwise , company is facing cash crunch. So again these information can be analyzed and production may be increased or supply may be reduced, as the case may be.

One simple real life example will make the concept more clear. One fine day we come to know the price of script Zee Telefilms Limited is Rs.1000/- and shares traded is 1 lac shares . These are pure raw data.

Now on collecting many such raw data of volume and price of transactions we come to know that volume of shares traded has been increasing in tandem with price.

So, applying basic theory of rising price with rising volume is a good sign and shares should be bought. This knowledge to be acted upon and we should buy the shares.

In short simple data of volume or simple data of price is of no help unless both are combined to know something and then this knowledge to be acted upon. Data and information should be combined to create knowledge. Human mind is applied to information to create knowledge.

What do we do:

Knowing how to convert data into knowledge is important for any organization and again to take right decision on the basis of knowledge is critical. Information management and organizational responsiveness to knowledge is the key issue. How a company manages the information decides the fate of the company. Information flow is the primary differentiator for business in the digital age. To do information work, people in the company have to have ready access to information. We have a tradition to share information with top executives only. In any company it is not easy to get information.

As I have stated above, human mind is to be applied to information . So we have the concept of Knowledge Workers(KW). It is KW who converts information into usable knowledge. On today's computer network we can retrieve data and share information easily and inexpensively. KW can turn passive data into active information.

Company must have digital network to share data and exchange ideas. In his book Business @speed of Thought author Bill Gates says " Unproductive Meetings that largely involves updates are signs of poor information flow." Which means all updates and happenings should be available on your digital system and meetings should be held to decide strategy and course of action.

To develop right kind of digital network , you must first find out information requirements of the business, to understand your market and your competitors. Think of the actionable information for your company. This maximises utilisation of mind and minimise labour.

KM requires an entirely new level of workgroup and company wide cohesion. Collaboration and not competition is the fundamental of KM. KM is centered on three elements: creation, discovery and distribution. There is a growing need to work closely ,cooperatively and collboratively with customers , suppliers , partners and other associates. KM will demand that an organisation rewards and offer incentive for sharing information and penalise information hoarding.

Why Knowledge Management?:

Some kind of knowledge we always used in our business. So what's new and important about KM??Jeff Papows (President & CEO of Lotus)in his Book Enterprise.Com has give seven reasons for KM.

• Globalisation: Operations of corporations are growing in multiple parts of the world. Sharing of information and experiences is highly useful in expanded business environment. Without the use of technology this kind of sharing with speed was impossible. Just think without email and intranet , how costly ,difficult and time consuming it would be to share information on a global basis.
• Speed: With the use of technology ,business is now operating with shorter market cycle. Business plan must be made ,executed or abandoned quickly. Change in in competitors policy and tactics force company to design new policy and execution faster. Speedy decision need huge amount of information at finger tips.
• Service Orientation: Customer focussed business need swift and customised service. To offer customise service data of every customers is a must for any business. Customer need quick service to solve their problems. This is possible only if organisation is ready with all relevant information.
• Worker Dispersion: Knowledge workers are now more mobile.It is estimated that around 50 % of the workforce of consulting firms is either in its first year or last year of employment. This means soon knowledge of retired employees wont be available to the company and new employees will need experience and information to execute the work. So to survive ,organisation must have system to capture the knowledge of senior employees and reuse the same whenever require.
• Business Relationship: Supply chain management, supplier partnership etc. results in companies working closer with these outer forces. This makes them learn many new things. Even web site can be a great source of knowledge for organisations. All this information should be available to the workforce.
• Technology: Intranet is the common platform to share information and experiences. Intranet is a network within an organisation. It works on technology of Internet , but available only to employees of an organisation. This facilitator of KM is useful tool used extensively by organisations.
• Competition: Organisation must try to do things better and smarter to beat the competition. Constant improvement is often the key to sustained market advantage. KM helps in constant improvement in services and products to remain competitive.

One thing is certain , in every business KM is critical in today's fast changing and shorter business cycles. It is applicable to every profession and smallest of businesses.

How KM?:

Organisation must capture the knowledge residing in the mind of every employees. There are two kind of knowledge : Explicit & Tacit. Tacit knowledge resides in the mind of individual. This is like habits, patterns, behaviors , insights etc. It is known by individual but not declared or spoken. While, explicit knowledge is expressed in any form like, reports , manuals , emails, software codes, act, journals and so on.

So main job of any organisation is to convert tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. KM system must support continues process of transforming personal (tacit) knowledge into organisational(explicit) knowledge.

In our real life example we have Tax Audit manual is explicit knowledge. But how to deal with difficult assessment is tacit in the mind of senior professionals. Senior professionals should express this tacit knowledge , how they dealt with particular difficult cases to help others to gain out of their knowledge. Initially this can be done within the organisation so that when a junior member is facing such cases , knowledge to deal with such case should be available. This kind of KM is very much critical for our kind of service oriented professionals.

If we take KM to our house, if a mother keep a record of all recipe and yearly house hold requirements , think how it would be easy for her daughter or daughter-in-law to take care of household needs and certain important recipe. So digitalization of knowledge for sharing is applicable in all the aspects of life. By distributing /sharing knowledge repetition of efforts to find solution for basic and known things can be avoided and this knowledge can be acted upon to improve further.

To conclude I quote statement of Mr. Jack Welch , Chairman of GE " An organisation's ability to learn and translate that learning into action rapidly , is the ultimate competitive advantage." I feel looking at the pace with which world of business is moving, Knowledge Workers are in great demand. Software companies' heavy reliance on KW is known to us. Days are not far when every business, to remain in business has to manage tacit and explicit knowledge in a best possible manner.

"In today's economy , the most important resource is no longer land, capital or labour ; it is knowledge" Peter Drucker.

Conclusion: Customer Management is very crucial and to deal with Data and information should travel fast in any organisation

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